Presidential powers under siege

The White House and House Republicans traded shots Tuesday over the extent of presidential power as GOP leaders moved closer to an unprecedented contempt vote against Attorney General Eric Holder over the controversial Fast and Furious program, despite a fresh attempt to head it off.

The standoff continued as a handful of Democrats said they intend to join Republicans and vote in favor of contempt, arguing the White House has failed to justify its claim of executive privilege.

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No sitting attorney general has ever faced a contempt vote, and Holder has claimed such a move could set off a “constitutional crisis” between Congress and the White House.

It could also set off a chain of unexpected political problems for lawmakers as the powerful National Rifle Association has waded into the dispute, siding with Republicans and against Holder.

Speaker John Boehner and California Rep. Darrell Issa, the lead investigator in the Fast and Furious probe, have refused to back down from their demand for Justice Department documents. They insist the House will move ahead with its vote — over heated objections from Democrats — unless Holder turns over thousands of additional pages of internal information.

Senior administration and DOJ officials — including White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler and Rob Nabors, the head of the White House Legislative Affairs Office — met Tuesday at the White House with Boehner and Issa aides in an attempt to head off the contempt vote, but they were unable to resolve the standoff, a GOP source said. Thirty pages of disputed documents were shared with Republican staffers at the one-hour session, yet other documents were withheld.

Aides to Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), ranking member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, also were briefed on the DOJ offer, another source added.

No other such meetings are planned, the sources said.

Holder and the White House noted that DOJ already has provided 7,600 pages of Fast and Furious documents, and Holder made what he called an “extraordinary offer” of additional access for congressional investigators if only Boehner and Issa would take contempt off the table, which Republicans refuse to do. On Wednesday, just moments before the Oversight and Government Reform Committee began a hearing on the Holder contempt resolution, President Barack Obama asserted executive privilege over some of the Fast and Furious documents, dramatically raising the political stakes for both sides.

The contempt vote is now set for Thursday. Republican leaders have been wrestling with a number of procedural hurdles for the vote, including how many contempt resolutions will be considered and what form they would take, as well as the length and structure of the floor proceedings leading up to the historic moment.

The Rules Committee will meet Wednesday to set the parameters of the floor debate. Republican leadership aides have been drafting a companion, civil contempt resolution to be paired with the criminal measure passed last week by the Oversight and Government Reform Committee on a party-line vote.

Issa, who chairs that panel, said at the time that the resolution would cover both civil and criminal contempt, but GOP attorneys have disagreed and moved to draft a second resolution.